Column 8

Eavesdropping can be a deeply disappointing experience. Column 8 sat behind a couple on the train from Central to Bondi Junction on Saturday evening, and overheard the following chat. Her: "I might have a cup of tea when I get home." Him (staring straight ahead, eyes glazed): "Yeah." Her: "I thought I might have a coffee, but that would keep me awake." Him: "Yeah." Her: "And if it keeps me awake, I won't be able to get to sleep." Him: "Yeah."

"Paradoxically, the IUPAC and RSC have left more than one ph (actually pH) in another acid, though not sulfuric/sulphuric," points out Lyn Smith, of Dubbo (Column 8's acid trip, last week). "Phosphorus, and hence phosphoric acid, has two!"

Still on the subject of Column 8's vows to lift our game in 2016, Robin Hammond, of Smithtown, laments that "I was reading an article on the ABC website about New Year's resolutions today, when I came across the word 'resultantly'. I don't know what pains me most: the frightful result from the use of 'result' as an adverb, or the fact that it comes from the ABC, one of our former arbiters of good grammar." To which Bob Macoun, of Lindfield, adds: "To Jessica Irvine and others: 'May your aches and pains last no longer than your New Year's resolutions."'

"When I write the word Aotearoa – the Maori name for New Zealand – spellcheck turns it into 'tearoom'," reports Airdre Grant, of Lismore. "What does this say about my homeland across the ditch?"

"Kevin Harris has, along with Ian Chappell, got it wrong," asserts Tim Ryan, of Longueville (Column 8, Saturday). "Only one batsman was short, the other batsmen having run two completed runs, so the correct score is one run. If the other batsman had also ran a short run (at the other end) it would be two short runs (umpire's hands on both shoulders) and zero runs." But has the second batsman really run two? If he had any sense, he would have been backing up at the bowler's end before the ball was delivered. But then again, as more than one observer has pointed out over the eons, "Cricket is a funny game." Whatever the answer, at time of writing there haven't been many runs scored of any description out in the SCG swamp this year.